


all we can do is keep breathing

by Magepaw



Category: The Arcana (Visual Novel)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anxiety, Asra (The Arcana) Route Spoilers, Canon Compliant, Childhood Friends, Dreams and Nightmares, Emotional Baggage, Friendship/Love, Growing Up, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Other, Pining, Possibly Unrequited Love, Pre-Relationship, Psychological Trauma, nonbinary apprentice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-01
Packaged: 2019-10-20 04:37:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17615615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Magepaw/pseuds/Magepaw
Summary: It's not so bad, having a friend for the first time. Maybe there is no greater meaning to it other than Asra being an abandoned kid who was afraid to be alone, and Muriel having nowhere better to be than by his side, but… it works. It's comfortable like this, the two of them against the world.





	all we can do is keep breathing

**Author's Note:**

> something that started as a cathartic drabble inspired by muriel's tale of when he and asra first met which then spiraled into a much longer much more personal story than intended bc it turns out he is For Me ~~and how it's gonna feel to eventually play a muriel/apprentice route and sink and drown and die in asra emotions~~
> 
> **please note** there are brief depictions of blood and disturbing imagery -- this is muriel pov mostly focused on trauma recovery, ie: proceed with caution bc it's not exactly happy, but he's healing, [gently](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe2BeQWR3HI)
> 
> they/them pronouns for apprentice who is mentioned but not named; this takes place pre-ritual before the game starts, so there are allusions to flashbacks/spoilers on asra's route but i tried to avoid any explicit mentions of That One Spoiler; i did my best to put events into an order that made sense to me (re: coliseum and his favor) but i know full well muriel's route is going to make everything i've headcanoned irrelevant; ~~author is in love with asra the arcana and is very willing to project these feelings onto every other character happy valentine's day??~~
> 
> **FEB 14 UPDATE:** hhhhappy valentines indeed :DDD raises my fist in the air in triumph i also finished [a painting](http://fav.me/dd1bgka) of him help i'm in deep

 

 

* * *

 

 

The problem with cities is that there are always too many people, and never enough places to hide from them.

 

Muriel winds his way through a labyrinth of narrow alleyways. His bare feet pad softly against cobblestones. The boy pulls his tattered blanket more tightly around himself, covering his head with it like a cloak. When he's certain he's alone for now, he presses his back against the cool stones and slides down, crossing his legs and catching his breath. His heart is still racing in his chest.

 

He clutches the little purple pouch gingerly in his dirty fingers, gazing at it and turning it over, and frowning as though it is a puzzle he can't quite figure out. What a weird gift. The rich scent of myrrh lingers in his nostrils. It is earthy and deep and transports him away from stone walls and crowded streets and the cramping of his painfully empty stomach, back, back, to the heavy silence of the dark wood he traveled through by night those years ago.

 

His heartbeat slows. His mind clears.

 

There is a faint spiciness on the back of his tongue when he inhales more deeply, letting it wash over his senses. It drowns out the clashing odors of the city, the cacophony of food vendors and fishmongers and horse carriages and the acrid press of sweaty bodies milling in the streets. His senses overwhelm him, too sensitive to live comfortably in an overstimulating place like Vesuvia. Bright lights and colors make his eyes water and his skull ache. He constantly feels off-balance, retreating into himself, unable to find his footing in this dazzling and distracting terrain so unnatural to him. The myrrh grounds him.

 

His mind wanders back to that impossible room filled with colorful sea glass and cushions and jars of treasures. Asra is the true puzzle he's trying to solve. His secret corner was nested beneath the dock, suspended between water and air, a realm born of a magician's pure imagination. And somehow, it was safe. It was the first place Muriel has felt safe in since war uprooted him from the home he scarcely remembers. On some instinctive level he can't explain, he trusts Asra, enough to follow him into the unknown.

 

Asra is something bright and quick and small, flitting like a colorful bird from one curiosity to the next. Vesuvia suits Asra in every way it does not suit Muriel, brimming with opportunities and excitement and magic. Muriel feels plodding and dull in comparison to him, mind too foggy from hunger and poor sleep to conjure words in time to keep up with conversation. Muriel is too large to blend in with a crowd like Asra does, too awkward to charm strangers who recoil from his mean face, and yet too kindhearted to run with gangs who offer him violent work because of his intimidating appearance. He doesn't like to hurt people. He just wants to be left alone by them. He does not belong here, but he does not belong anywhere else, either. He thinks Asra could belong anywhere he wants to.

 

Muriel leans his head back against the wall, pulling the cloak over his eyes and closing them for a brief rest. He will have to deal with unhappy thieves later, but for now he is strangely grateful to have met Asra, and to have found a moment's peace. He keeps the pouch around his neck, nestled close to his heartbeat, to remember what it felt like being a part of Asra's secret world for a day.

 

He does not allow himself to hope for anything more than one glimpse of that magical realm. Hope has hurt him before. He is merely an oddity that caught Asra's attention once, but Asra will move on once he's bored, and that will be fine. Muriel is better off alone anyway. He simply has to survive.

 

* * *

 

Clever little Asra finds him again, and again, and again, even when he hides from the thieves and the harsh daylight, until it becomes a daily habit to expect Asra's wispy cloud of hair to appear around every corner. It lifts a weight in Muriel's chest every time he spots that red scarf bobbing from a distance. It means another day he does not simply endure, but finds something to smile about. Muriel imagined Asra to be something airy and sylph-like, an impulsive fae of mischief, never to land twice in the same place. Asra turns out to be stubborn and clingy and much more real, a solid presence that holds his hand and pulls him through crowds and takes him to secret places and refuses to let him slip into obscurity so easily.

 

It's not so bad, having a friend for the first time. Maybe there is no greater meaning to it other than Asra being an abandoned kid who was afraid to be alone, and Muriel having nowhere better to be than by his side, but… it works. It's comfortable like this, the two of them against the world.

 

Asra's pure heart creates adventure in everything he does, and Muriel cannot help but admire him, as a shadow admires the light it dances at the feet of. Asra is a golden child who is beloved everywhere he goes. He finds the wonder in anything, creating beauty even in mundane everyday life. Born of powerful magician parents and chosen by the Arcana, Asra is a natural talent at everything he touches. When Faust hatches, the two are instantly inseparable, a boy and his snake, a magician and his familiar. Muriel can hardly look away from how brilliantly they shine. 

 

Asra stays slight as he eases gracefully into his teens, the soft roundness of his face smoothing into high cheekbones and curving lips that always hint at a sly smile. Asra is lean and light around the rigging and decks of the ships they explore, surefooted and bold. With his skills he'd no doubt make an excellent pickpocket, but instead earns his coin in the market perfecting knife tricks and fortune readings and his dazzling smile. Asra earns enough to not only keep himself fed, but to also collect colorful trinkets like a magpie. He adorns himself in every color of the rainbow, vests and pants one day, skirts and scarves the next, with nary a care for convention so long as he likes the color and the movement of it. He is unrepentant in his fashion choices even when his clashing patterns hurt Muriel's eyes to look at.

 

Adolescence is less kind to Muriel than it is to Asra. His voice cracks and crumbles into rough gravel. Black stubble sprouts patchy like roadside weeds along the stubborn jut of his jaw and bristles along the expanse of his chest and back. Always tall for his age, Muriel feels ever clumsier as he shuffles along in Asra's graceful wake, woefully large body continuing to grow broader in every direction. He stoops, and hunches his shoulders, making the conscious effort to occupy less space, to not bruise his forehead against every single doorway. Even with his poor posture Muriel still looms a full head above not only Asra but most of the marketplace as well, which makes him a spectacle to be gossiped about. He gives up on the hope that he will ever be normal.

 

Muriel has always been painfully self conscious under the stares and muttering of strangers, and his uncooperative body continues to draw more and more of their unwanted attention. He mumbles his awkward apologies as he blunders past them, never meeting anyone's eyes longer than he has to. His heart beats too fast under their judgmental staring, arms and legs going numb when he forgets to breathe, cold sweat prickling along his crawling skin. He wishes he knew how to disappear into the stones beneath his feet. If only he could become invisible.

 

He will never be brave, but Asra was right about his body's potential for magic, at least. Muriel's abjuration magic is not flashy disguises and turning sand into water, but it is practical, simple wards and defenses to keep himself and Asra protected when they sleep beneath the docks. He vows to keep Asra and Faust safe any way he is able. He is slow-moving and sullen, but strong enough to find work loading crates for merchants and unloading the fishing hauls at the docks. He builds up cords of muscle in his thick arms and shoulders, and saves what he can from his meager pay to help provide for their makeshift family. It's simple, honest work, and perhaps he would have been signed on as a sailor or a fisherman had it not been for Asra's aspirations lying elsewhere, and Muriel's loyalty to him above all else.

 

He thinks if he can continue to labor steadily like this, keeping his meals small and mending the holes in his only clothes and buying nothing he does not need, they can afford a roof over their heads someday. He lets himself imagine a home where they all can belong.

 

* * *

 

The world continues turning whether or not Muriel keeps up with it. Asra continues to make friends effortlessly with his charismatic smile, but Muriel does not want or need other people to complicate his life. It's not like he's ever been good with people or communication in general. People feel threatened by his presence even when he says nothing at all. Asra knows this better than anyone but insists on sharing anecdotes of his many friends and their lives anyway, as though Muriel ever had a place in their world. He does not care for other people.

 

There is one person in Vesuvia that Asra likes to tell him about in particular, and it is clear that Asra very much does care about this one. Muriel has his doubts. At first it is nothing, a chance encounter, not even a friendship. Not yet. But feelings will grow, slowly and relentlessly, a seed cradled in Asra's chest that will one day send sweet flowers spilling from his lips and cruel roots down to split his heart.

 

* * *

 

The stone hut is small and dilapidated, forgotten among the tangled roots of the tree that has grown over it. It is not a welcoming place, cast in eternal shadow by the twisted copse of trees that blot out the sun. It has no furnishings, no windows, not even a door when they find it. Cold rainwater seeps in through gaps in the stones and puddles along the floor. Spiderwebs stretch from every corner. Moss threatens to swallow the structure whole.

 

With every last copper of Muriel's diligent savings, it becomes theirs.

 

They clean it up together with some magic shortcuts and some heavy lifting. They fix the hearth so that they can keep Faust warm during the winter, even though Muriel forgets to light the fire most days and simply piles on more furs atop himself and the snake to compensate. Asra sets up shelves for his collections, jars and bottles and plants and statues of animals. Muriel lets Asra decorate as he pleases, as he always does. He casts his protections on the new door so that no one but the two of them can enter, and Asra twists the grass and branches outside into protection spells with his clever fingers so that no one can locate them here.

 

They are together, and that is all Muriel has ever needed to feel content. For a time, he thinks this must be what happiness feels like.

 

Time gets jumbled up in his head, memories tangled out of order and hard to unravel. These are the simple days he returns to when he closes his eyes, shut tight against the roars of the crowd. He thinks of the quiet forest, of Faust delightedly climbing trees and dropping from the boughs onto his shoulders, of Asra napping by firelight with a book splayed on his chest and his cards scattered around him, of being alone together.

 

Sometimes he is back on the wharf, and it is seagulls and waves and Asra's fond laughter Muriel strains to hear in his mind, instead of cries of pain and spectators stomping their feet and screaming from the stands. He conjures the flash of Asra's white teeth as he smiles, the vivid warmth in his violet eyes, anything he can focus on other than the rattle of chains and the relentless chanting:

 

_Scourge! Scourge! Scourge!_

 

The chants fade into background noise as he sinks deeper into himself. The sunlight sparkles over the surface of the sea, reflecting highlights that dance in Asra's eyes. His gaze is as bright as ever, clever and sharp as he pores over the cards he made himself, eager to unravel the mysteries of this universe and the one that lies beyond it. The sun warms his skin to a rich honey-gold, and shines iridescent on Faust's scales from where she is draped languidly around his neck.

 

Muriel finds himself staring at Asra's nimble fingers. They stroke feather-light over his familiar's head, then dart to shuffle the deck again. This younger Asra looks proud to show Muriel everything he has learned from the spirit of the Magician this time. Muriel's heavy gaze lingers on Asra's hands as he lays out the spread of cards. Cards do not speak to him the way stones do. Muriel's magic is rooted firmly in the earth, drawing from mountain and rock and the laws of nature, nothing like the ways Asra can bend reality, but he watches, silently impressed.

 

He barely listens to the words Asra says at all, and so Asra grins and presses a card directly into Muriel's calloused palm. The artwork he has painted is of a hulking bear. The faint impression that washes over him is something solitary and calming and somehow familiar. _The Hermit_. Is… that supposed to be him?

 

Asra's hands are so gentle, so warm, always, that Muriel almost dares to imagine they linger on his skin for a second longer than they need to.

Muriel's eyes are unfathomably dark when he opens them again. Reality floods his senses in a dizzying rush. His head is bowed, so he stares bleakly at the sand beneath him and does not look up. He is here again, the last place he wants to be. It is too bright and too loud. He immediately wants to return to his memories, where he can be safe, but he is trapped.

 

Vesuvia holds no pity toward the groaning figure crumpled at his feet. The gladiator has lost to Muriel, and awaits his fate. The crowd is worked into a frenzy, tension humming in the air as they snap their jaws and howl like beasts. _Scourge_. Muriel pretends not to see the flash of sunlight on the count's terrible golden arm, but his gesturing from the stands is clear.

 

Muriel does not have the strength in him to go against Count Lucio's wishes, not now, not ever. He feels so much older than that Muriel from the docks, exhausted and numb to the world. That was another person, a lifetime ago.

 

 _You don't like to hurt people_ , he hears Asra's tiny voice from the night they met. The impossible chamber of suspended sea glass glitters around him in a rich kaleidoscope of deep red and burnished orange and the same cosmic purple as his knowing eyes. _You'd have it easier if you weren't so nice._

 

There is a buzzing in his ears, some pressure building up in him, vibrating beneath his skin and making him tremble from the force of holding it in. There is blood spattered across his knuckles. He is not sure if it is his own. Asra has touched these same hands, interlaced their fingers and pulled him, always into the sunlight. Muriel is tarnished now. Distantly he registers that his cheek throbs from where it is flayed open, trickling hot and wet beneath the metal of his collar. He hopes the red on his hands is from this. He can't be certain.

 

He thinks he might be crying. He can't be certain about that either.

 

Asra must never know how far Muriel would go to protect him from Lucio. He inhales the ugly tang of copper that burns his sensitive nostrils and sours his stomach, and wishes he could find the calming scent of myrrh and drown his senses in it, slow his heartbeat, escape this broken and bitter reality. And still, the crowd screams for more blood.

 

Muriel is ruined. He can see nothing but the despair that stretches before him, endless and black. But all he must do is survive. For Asra. So he does what he must to survive.

 

* * *

 

Time slips faster through Muriel's fingers now, letting days, weeks, entire seasons fall away from him. Sometimes Asra sleeps here, curled with Faust by the fire, but more often Asra yearns for human contact and inevitably drifts off to the city again. Time holds no meaning when Asra is away, though. Every day is the same. Only dreams carry him to strange places, sometimes scenes from the past, sometimes the future, blurring the line between what has happened and what is still to come.

 

When he is forgotten, he is invisible, and he can finally, finally be safe.

 

The hut is sanctuary from the relentless turning of the outside world. It moves too quickly for him. Muriel can bear the terrible weight of strangers' stares no longer, not with the violence carved into his body in scars he will never heal from. The call of the forest finally claims him, and he puts his roots down, and he does not go back.

 

The trees are laden with ancient power he can feel, their magic thick in the rolling fog. He can live off the land without needing to work for coin. The trees tower high enough to make him feel small, and he does not need to use his rough voice for anything. There are no eyes to watch him and judge him here beyond the peaceful birds and beasts. Muriel thinks perhaps this quiet place is where he belonged all along.

 

Inanna is of the woods here, wild and unbound. The she-wolf drifts in and out his path like a wraith, observing his hunts from a distance with glowing gold eyes, until she accepts he is a beast like her. Even when she begins following him back to the hut, she does not let him touch her for a long time. Not that Muriel tries. He does not let strangers touch him either.

 

He knows there is no crowd out here, and yet, he still hears distorted echoes of their ghastly roars when he drifts between sleep and consciousness. Disembodied eyes stare at him as he crumbles and breaks, their banshee voices jeering at his suffering, wailing for his blood. The collar around his neck is an anchor dragging him into an abyss. He wakes with gasping, shuddering breaths, drenched in sweat, heart thudding so fast and so hard he expects the terror will kill him.

 

Sometimes Muriel is still there when he wakes fully, mind trapped in a purgatory of hot sand and blinding sunlight and unforgiving steel. He cannot move his frozen limbs until the cool darkness of the forest creeps back in to his senses, and he remembers where he is. Sometimes when he comes to this way, paralyzed by his dreams, the concerned touch of Inanna's wet nose is cold against his leg. She observes him as he regains slow control of his numb body, her soft whine filtering through the jumble of his mind.

 

He wonders if he cries out in his sleep to alert her, or if she simply senses his distress. He brushes Inanna aside once he is able to move, because there is nothing she can do about his past any more than he can. He simply continues to exist, leaving the past one day further away from him at a time.

 

When Asra does return from his journeys, he simply sweeps back in through the door as though he'd never left. But it is as though time shifts for him, reality bending back into place. Muriel feels whole again, just for a while. He has a reason to smile. Inanna accepts Asra easily, as animals tend to do, and Muriel can hardly blame her for being charmed by him. He has yet to meet anyone who did not find themselves at least a little bit charmed by Asra.

 

Muriel settles quietly on the floor beside the wolf to listen to Asra's storytelling. He gazes up at Asra, who paces and gesticulates with his clever hands as he describes the width and breadth of the swift beast whose back he rode upon across the fields. A gentle fondness settles over him. It's like Asra's very presence breathes more color into his surroundings, his positive aura effusing light into this dim and unchanging corner of the forest. Asra is the only voice he hears for months, the only one who knows where to find his hiding place, the only person he will speak to in return.

 

Asra is also the only person allowed to touch him. Asra has always been tactile in his boundless affection, casual hugs and hand-holding and leaning all without a second thought. Now it is tempered with careful hesitation as Asra makes sure Muriel is grounded first; that he is not slipping into a time and place that Asra cannot pull him back from. _It's not your fault_ , Asra reassures him, and Muriel knows. It doesn't change the fact that it happened, though. That he isn't allowed to forget what he did. What his fear is capable of turning him into.

 

Muriel feels something thaw a little in his chest every time Asra greets him with that smile, and reaches for his hand as though he still deserves to be touched. With their warm fingers laced together, however briefly, it feels like home. This is where Muriel wants to stay, forever.

 

Asra never stays for long. Muriel never asks him to.

 

Asra travels further and further away from Vesuvia, seeking grander adventures in this realm and the next. Muriel survives. He remains rooted in place, the days blurring into one endless stream as he awaits Asra's next return.

 

* * *

 

Asra falls willingly into the arms of the palace, and Muriel knows now, in some simple instinctive truth, how important that magician will continue to be in Asra's life. Muriel observes the way Asra's eyes sparkle like the sunlight atop the sea when he talks about _them_ more and more. He speaks of the magic shop and all its eccentricities, about how they read cards like a natural and bend spells in ways even he can't seem to duplicate, about masquerade balls and arcane power and the way their aura _shines_ , and Muriel still says nothing in return.

 

Muriel has his doubts, but there is nothing he can say to dissuade Asra's smile. There is something painfully heavy sunken in his chest, a leaden weight burrowed beneath his ribs, but he does not have a name for this peculiar creeping dread. Premonition, perhaps. No good will come of this. He cannot bear to watch Asra's heart break.

 

When he is alone again, Muriel supposes this is what love looks like to an outsider.

 

Asra glows with vibrant energy, his rainbow soul spilling over with hope and adoration for someone new, for a future they could build together. Muriel watches Asra linger in the city, mooning around the magician's shop, retreating to the forest only to lament that he has still not found the words to tell them he wants something more than this, wants to share himself and become something greater together than the sum of their parts. Asra _wants_ , and it pulls at him, his curiosity a fixation, his obsession a trap of his own making he cannot escape.

 

Muriel has never known what it is like to meet a stranger's eyes in a crowd and want to be known by them, want to be seen and accepted for who is. It is a simple observation: Muriel is always _other_ , the way he can watch people from afar but never close the distance between them. How he wants to vanish, and be forgotten, rather than make connections. He wonders if he is even capable of the sort of feelings Asra speaks of, the love Asra saw in his parents, the love Asra yearns for himself but has yet to confess. Muriel will never be able to understand this want.

 

Like stone worn down by relentless wind and water, Muriel has lost too much of himself to be whole. He is less than he used to be. There is not much of anything left in him, only the crumbling holes and cracks where his pieces used to be. Perhaps he has never been capable of feeling love, and this is why he has not sought it from others. He has long forgotten the faces of his parents before he was sent away, any memories of their love gone with them. Muriel thinks, even if there is no space for happiness or hope in himself, at least he will be content as long as Asra is happy. That is what he should want for his only friend. To protect Asra's smile.

 

He stares at his hands and remembers only the dreadful acts he has committed with them, always falling back into that bloody time, reliving the same moments over and over while the world moves on without him. It is only Asra who knows Muriel even exists now. It is only Asra that he trusts with his existence.

 

No, he does not believe he can fall in love the way whole people do. There is not enough of him left to entrust to other people, whose cruel hands will only break him. It is only Asra his heart beats for.

 

* * *

 

Outside the gilded gates of the palace, the water runs red. Sickness in Vesuvia spreads, ill omens of plague and death creeping into the dark forest and whispering in the twisted landscape of his premonition dreams. And Muriel still exists the only way he can bear, secluded from it all.

 

His days follow the same pattern. He wakes to let Inanna out, and while she lopes off into the trees to stretch her legs and relieve herself, Muriel falls into the familiar routine of checking his protection spells, drawing rainwater from the barrel, collecting firewood, feeding the chickens, gathering their eggs, stoking the fire, boiling a meager breakfast, eating alone. He knows people will die in Vesuvia. He knows. He closes his eyes to listen to the peace around him. The only noises are the soft crackle of the fireplace, the rustling and clucking of his hens outside, and the clink of the chain around his neck.

 

He will weed the garden and chop new firewood for the next day, track the wild boar or deer with Inanna, and if their hunt is successful, spend the rest of the daylight hours drying and smoking meat to preserve it for winter, scraping the hide so he can stretch and tan it into leather, preserving antler and tusk and heart to offer for Asra's spellwork, watching Inanna play with the bones and bury them where she can unearth them later. If he can tire his body, his mind will fall asleep more willingly, and perhaps he will wake without struggle. And when he wakes, the cycle repeats.

 

When next he dreams, it is not the dread gates of the coliseum or the clouds of ravenous red beetles he falls into. It is a place much further back in time, a warped landscape corrupted by his fear. Distant war cries echo among the twisted trees where his child self cowers and waits to be discovered. Muriel listens to Lucio's triumphant crowing rise above the cries of his tribesmen and his hunting dogs as they tear through what was once a home. Muriel prays through chattering teeth to remain invisible to them. He makes himself as small as he can. If Lucio can never find him, he will be safe.

 

If he cannot be seen, he will be safe.

 

After this dream, Muriel hangs herbs to dry from the ceiling, filling the air with the rich earthy scents he prefers to ground himself. He quietly hopes the familiar scent of myrrh will guide him back to the present when next he slips out of his body and into a dark place he would rather forget. He will continue to exist. He knows he will continue to do anything Asra asks of him. It changes nothing for him if Asra is in love with someone else.

 

* * *

 

Muriel doesn't bring it up until the night Asra shows up at his door with a loaf of pumpkin bread under his arm, a bottle of Prakran wine in one hand, and a flagon of Muriel's favorite black mead in the other. _There is no occasion_ , Asra insists airily as he sweeps inside, _friends don't need an occasion to celebrate each other's company._ Muriel immediately notices the way Asra's collarbone protrudes too far from his skin, the sleepless bruises beneath his glassy eyes, his pulse fluttering visibly in the veins at his wrists—he is overworked, then, stressed and not sleeping enough and still smiling to cover it up. Muriel rumbles his disapproval but dutifully makes room for him in the hut. Asra can always rest here away from the world's suffering, for as long as he wants to stay.

 

He sees Asra is close to a breaking point, that he feels trapped and yearns to flee, but Vesuvia will not give him respite, not in the grips of the spreading plague. The Asra who is afraid to be left alone is splintering, watching his many friends fall ill around him, and the jagged edges of fear will cut whoever pushes him past that point into ribbons. Perhaps he just wants proof that Muriel, at least, will always be there for him, exactly how he left him, always the same. Muriel will not be the one to push him.

 

With no need for further words, the two friends get drunk on the fur pelts spread before the merry fire. Faust dozes nearby, limp like a discarded sock, her blunt snout curved into a little smile. Inanna slips off into the cold night, bothered by the blazing heat. Muriel feels unusually warm and heavy as the night stretches on, his head buzzing pleasantly as his sharp senses finally go dull. His thoughts are slow and syrupy like oozing tree sap, lagging as he struggles to make sense of words. It's been a long time since he's had mead. It's been a long time since he's felt this relaxed, too.

 

He leans back on his arms and watches the fire as he listens to Asra's bright laughter replace the usual silence of the hut. Cheeks flushed from drink, Asra lays his fluffy head against Muriel's broad shoulder, brushes his nimble fingers against the rough skin of Muriel's knuckles, and confesses that he has fallen in love.

 

Muriel snorts. He has known this for much longer than Asra has.

 

"Was I supposed to act surprised," Muriel slurs in his hoarse voice, faint smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He hesitates, but still moves an arm to wrap around the curve of Asra's slumping body, supporting him as he melts against the heat of Muriel's chest. It's alright, because it's Asra. He would never hurt Asra.

 

Asra tilts his head up and up until he can meet Muriel's eyes, his own crinkled with amusement and perhaps a rare touch of embarrassment. "You could at least pretend, for my dignity's sake." He purses his lips, feigning offence as his blush deepens.

 

Muriel smiles at his petulant expression. He thinks Asra is probably the only person who ever sees him smile so indulgently.

 

"Muriel, how do I tell them?" Asra whispers finally, leaning into his touch. His drunken expression has fallen into something faraway and lonely, a mask that Asra rarely lets slip. His natural confidence has been eroded by months, years of growing fear. He tilts his face upward to gaze with those impossible eyes as he waits for an answer that Muriel cannot possibly give him.

 

Muriel doesn't reply except to raise one large hand and gently brush the wisps of cloudlike hair threatening to fall into Asra's eyes. Asra blinks slowly up at him, working through something before he speaks haltingly again.

 

"I… want them to run away with me. I want to take them away from this place. I don't want… The cards say… I don't want to lose them. How… how do I get them to stay with me?"

 

Asra is always smaller than Muriel expects him to be. His presence is so larger than life, but here, cradled in Muriel's strong arms, he feels so light, so vulnerable, so easy for the world to crush. Muriel cannot bear to watch Asra's heart break over this.

 

Protectiveness surges in him, makes him grip Asra tighter against his chest, as though he could wrench him away from the hold Vesuvia has over him through sheer force alone. He would fight for Asra, always, no matter what the cost to himself. His scars are testament to his devotion. He wishes he could do something, anything, about this. About the plague threatening Vesuvia, and about the magician who is too stubborn to run away from danger. But it is not his battle to fight.

 

Asra hums softly as he is hugged, tucking his fluffy head underneath Muriel's chin like he used to do when they were kids, so many years ago. He curls his fingers into the fur draped over Muriel's shoulders, tugging it over them both as he nestles into Muriel's steady heartbeat. Asra's soft breathing is warm against Muriel's collarbone, slowing and evening out until Muriel realizes he has drifted to sleep in his arms.

 

Over the dimming crackle of the fire, he hears the soft rush of rain outside. Inanna's howl is distant. Night will make way for dawn soon, cold and foggy. Asra will wake, and he will leave. Time continues to press forward, even when he wishes it would stop. He cannot keep Asra here like a tamed bird any more than Asra can draw him out of the woods and into his world, but he aches for everything he cannot do.

 

"You can't," he whispers finally. "You can't make them stay with you. It's their choice to make, not yours."

 

Muriel is aware he desires home in a way that Asra does not. He has always needed familiar ground to feel safe, solid and real beneath his feet, somewhere he won't be an outsider, somewhere to belong to. He needs this as much as Asra needs his freedom and will always fly for new horizons when he feels trapped in gravity's pull. They are opposites in this, something of the air and something of the earth, but they still revolve around each other's lives in a routine that is comforting to the both of them. Life without Asra is meaningless. It is survival, and nothing more.

 

Perhaps the home Muriel yearns for has never been a place at all.

 

Muriel wonders, as he cradles Asra's sleeping form against his heartbeat, if it would change anything at all if he told Asra he loved him. Asra has given his heart and soul to his magician, and that is fine, too. It would change nothing in the end. Muriel supposes everything would remain the same as it always is between them, because Muriel has always loved Asra. He knows he always will. And time continues on without him.

 

 


End file.
